L.A.'s Hottest Restaurant Is Fighting for Refugee Justice

Last fall the New York Times gave its first starred review ever—three stars, to be precise—to a restaurant outside the New York City area. “While Cassia is not the epitome of any particular trend, most of the food coming out of its kitchen is just really delicious,” Pete Wells concluded after being won over by chef Bryant Ng’s grilled pig tail, lamb breast with cumin seeds, and other sophisticated takes on Vietnamese street food.

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And, like that, reservations at the Santa Monica spot were as hard to come by as they are at such world class competitors as Gramercy Tavern and Momofuku Ko.

Grilled Spicy Lamb Breast served at Cassia, Santa Monica.

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Fortunately for those desperate to score a table, there’s one surefire way in: the annual L.A. Chefs for Human Rights (LACHR) dinner, when Cassia’s owners—Ng and his wife Kim, and Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan—join with other top Los Angeles toques in throwing a fundraiser to benefit the Program for Torture Victims (PTV).

“I first encountered PTV 10 years ago, when I worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of L.A. representing survivors of torture in immigration proceedings,” says Kim, who is an immigration lawyer when she’s not wearing her restaurateur hat. “PTV’s doctors and psychologists would evaluate my clients for evidence of torture to prevent their deportation back to their place of harm. I never lost a case, and I couldn’t have done it without them.”

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PTV also provided her clients and others like them—all traumatized, some suicidal—with medical care, counseling, and other social services. Kim knows whereof she speaks: Her father was tortured during the Vietnam War fighting for the U.S., and as a result her family had to flee the country in 1979. They came to the U.S. as refugees when she was two.

Bryant and Kim Ng

Courtesy

“This is very personal for me,” she says. And it’s pressing. “An alarming 44 percent of refugees in the Los Angeles region have endured torture, which means that L.A. is home to thousands of torture survivors—it could very well be that a neighbor or co-worker is a refugee who was forced to flee persecution,” Kim adds.

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“And there are more than 100,000 local refugees waiting for asylum interviews or immigration court hearings, with a backlog of more than five years.”

It could very well be that a neighbor or co-worker is a refugee who was forced to flee persecution.

So last October Kim and her partners teamed up with L.A. celebrity chefs Nancy Silverton, Niki Nakayama, and Ray Garcia to create the kind of evening most foodies can only dream of. “It was magical on every level,” Kim says, and it ended up surpassing their fundraising goal of $100,000—a significant percentage of PTV’s annual operating budget.

This year they’ve raised the bar to $150,000, in part because PTV is among many nonprofits that have seen their government funding threatened or shrunk—and high-profile Angelenos are clamoring for places. (Kim’s most recent table sale was to the owners of a professional sports team.)

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“I sometimes look out into the dining room on a busy Saturday night and I’m amazed,” Kim says. “We had no idea what it would become when we opened. It’s also a space I can use to expand my capacity to help refugees, beyond serving one individual at a time. Because everyone deserves an opportunity to realize their fullest human potential, especially torture survivors who stood up to repressive regimes for the freedom to think, write, believe, and be who they are.” Those who stand with her just might score a plate of grilled pig tail.

Souvenirs from last year’s L.A. Chefs For Human Rights event.

Kevin Sweeney

Plan of Action:

Purchase a table ($7,500 for a 6-seater) for the L.A. Chefs for Human Rights dinner on September 25 on their webiste. Make a direct donation to the Program for Torture Victims on their website.

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